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in the UK it is possible to get an hd 4870 for less than an overclocked 9800gtx that runs the same values as the gtx+, and the 9800gtx+ is more the £100 more than the hd 4850 that is the one it competes with! does anyone else think nvidia have dropped the ball with this one?

if i was to buy a new card i wouldnt even consider an nvidia one at this point in time. Reply

You didn't tell me the most basic things like what settings the games are at. Crysis runs at 31.3 with 9800GTX+ I see at 1600X1200, but wait, what settings? What DX version? This is pitiful guys. Just pitiful. The most basic of information lacking.

And another thing, stop benching at 1600X1200 and use 1680X1050, like everybody on earth's widescreen LCD is. Using basic common LCD res's seems like another no-brainer to me.

And what's with giving me a graph of one uber high res at one setting for each game, instead of several?

Anand GPU reviews have gone way downhill, guys. Funny, a chinese site leaked a 4870 review yesterday, and there review was actually more complete and thorough than almost any western site posts these days. More benches, more games, more resolutions, actually listing the settings (crazy idea), and extremely handy summary % +/- comparisons with all major competing cards. From the major western sites now (Tom's, FS, etc) we tend to get spotty reviews each with major flaws. Reply

My complaints apply to all Anandtech recent reviews, basically that aren't handled by Anand himself. If you read them you might notice such things as omitting tested game settings are the norm.

Although, I was wrong about the 1680X1050 thing. I noticed that the other multi-line graph does have 1680X1050. Although 16X12 shouldnt be the main bar graph spotlighted on the page imo by the same token.

I just prefer each game tested at maybe 3 resolutions and those printed as bar graphs rather than the way AT has gone to the line graphs. I know they claim the latter provide more information, but I just think they aren't easy to read enough. And there's really no use for them, they're already printing one bar graph and the second line graph, so what, they're saving one graph per page? big deal.

AT has a lot of good points no doubt, their bar graphs are the boldest and easiest to read bar none. It's amazing how many sites print a bar graph with the cards represented by 14 subtly different shades of the same color and expect you to read it. AT also dont typically clutter up the graphs with 40,000 different cards and all manner of annoying CF/SLI/3way SLI/kitchen sink crap either ( I believe they seperated multigpu in the 4800 review) like some sites. OTOH some AT reviews dont contain enough benched cards imo.. Reply

well, the only game i play from that list is crysis, and the 9800 GTX outperforms the ati... well, I guess i'll have to make the plunge to ati now, my 7950 GT can't play any game now at max settings Reply

The amazing thing I noticed is that the 8800 GT SLI is #2 to the 9800 GX2 in most games and falling to #3 a couple of times when the GTX 280 happens to break into the top 2 positions. It looks like if you own the GTX 280 you need to play Enemy Territory where it's #1 except at 1680x1050 and also a couple of other games where it is in the #1 position at 2560x1600.

The question that I would like answered is will any of these new cards scale the way the single 8800 GT does going to 8800 GT SLI? The more I look at these and other benchmarks the more I'm inclined to stay with my 8800 GT SLI.

Yeah how weird is that? Two companies that are such bitter rivals both use the same manufacturer. I didn't know they both used TSMC until a few weeks ago.

Also I know it's just a name but I think Nvidia is retarded for their naming scheme the last few rounds. First the whole 8800GTS 640\320 512\256 then the 8800GSO\9600GSO which is basically a 9600GT and now the 9800GTX+. Really unimaginative and it just shows how much they're trying to capitalize on the 8800 name. They need to fire the guy who jumbled this thing so badly. You would think Jen-Hsun Huang would be on top of things like this. Unless this was his idea?

Anyways my 8800GTX is still kickin strong, but I'm looking forward to seeing the rest of ATI's lineup. Reply

Your right and a lot of people would agree. Nvidia's naming is so confusing that most people who aren't so tech savy wouldn't know if a GSO or the GS or the GTS or GT is faster. Not to mention they released the cards with different types of memory (512 vs 640) under the same name with the higher memory being slower, older version of the same card. How many people probably mistakenly bought the 640 version of the 8800GT without knowning the 512 was actually faster? Not everyone reads tech news daily.

Only the less tech savy customers are the ones hurt, which is most of the customers. Although no one on anandtech would get confused, I know plenty of friends who are and ask me all the time which cards to buy. But even I have to read tech news daily just to keep up with it. This is, YANL, as one review website coined the term (yet another nvidia launch). Reply

The 9600 GSO is basically the 8800GS video card renamed. Same 192 Bit memory interface and 384MB of memory. I believe 96 Shaders as well.

The 9600 GT version has 64 Shaders but the clockspeeds are higher than the GS clocks and carries a 256 Bit memory bus.

Whats sad is the GSO version could beat the GT version in certain things and the GT wins in other things. They are not clearly defined as they should be since they are carrying the same Model #. nVideo has the worse naming so far.

So if you've seen the 8800GS review then you've seen the 9600 GSO reviewed...

Are the Oblivion numbers in the chart really accurate?
You're trying to tell me the 9800GTX+ with 9.3% better core and 7.x% better shaders and the same speed RAM gets 15% better FPS in Oblivion?

Seems a little odd, unless there are some other changes under the hood, because I don't see how a <10% change in clocks can get you 15% change in performance without something a bit weird going on. Reply

We can probably chalk that up to the GTX+'s new drivers. We retested the old 9800 GTX with the new drivers in Assassin's Creed, Bioshock and The Witcher. NVIDIA told us that the other games we tested didn't change in performance but we didn't verify that. After the Radeon HD 4870 review is done we should be able to go back and retest the rest of the 9800 GTX numbers to help clear up any issues like this.

It's interesting to see how well the 4850 does in the performance per watt area. Even in CF it idles at less then the 9800GTX+, I guess that gap will lessen as Nvidia's 55nm process improves. Now if they would start putting some better coolers on the 4850... Reply

Using the same process doesn't mean you'll get the same results. It's entirely possible to less a more power efficient chip using 55nm than a competing chip built using 65nm; it's all in the design. AMD has had more time fine-tuning their designs for 55nm, and we could see some updates to NVIDIA's 55nm part that will further reduce power requirements... or not. The fabrication facility is really only a small part of the equation; a great process with a lousy design still won't make for a killer product. Reply

It's funny. Two weeks ago I would have loved to be able to get a 9800GTX for $200 (my budget for a video card in the upcoming build), but now I have absolutely no interest in it at that price due to the great performance of the HD 4850. Even if the two were even I would choose the ATI card because of regular driver updates, but it just amazes me that my fortune has changed so quickly that a card I used to really want no longer interests me because a better cheaper card came out so quickly. Reply